Yoo Chijin (1905-1974) was a South Korean playwright and theater director.
1. Life
Yoo Chijin was born in 1905 in Geoje, South Gyeongsang province. Yu began his education at a traditional Korean school in his hometown, where he pursued the study of Chinese classics. In 1921 he left to study in Japan, graduating from Ritkyo University with a degree in English literature in 1931. While at Ritkyo University, he read and was deeply impressed by Romain Rolland's Le Théâtre du Peuple. Upon his return to Korea, he formed the modern theater troupe Geukyesulyeonguhoe (‘Geukyeon’). In 1932 he began his literary career serializing his play Tomak (토막 The Shack) in Munye Wolgan. He followed this with such works as Binminga (빈민가 The Slum) and So (소 The Ox) that criticized the conditions of rural life under Japanese colonial rule, and was also active as a theater critic espousing enlightenment values.
In the late colonial period when draconian censorship rules made theater performances almost impossible, Yu staged pro-Japanese collaborative plays such as Heungnyonggang (흑룡강 Black Dragon River) and Daechunamu (대추나무 The Jujube Tree). After the liberation in 1945, he became a formidable arts administrator. He founded the Geukyesulhyeophoe (1946) and served as the head of the Korean Performing Arts Academy (1947) and the Korean Theater Studies Association (1948), as well as first director of the National Theater of Korea (1950). In 1962 he was instrumental in founding the Seoul Drama Center, and established the Korean Research Institute for Dramatic Arts, which would later become Seoul Institute of the Arts. From the 1960s onwards he worked mostly in an educational capacity, moulding the next generation of Korean theater.
2. Writing
Yoo Chijin was influenced by the 1920s Singeuk (New Theater) movement that modeled itself after 19th century European realist theater. His best known works such as The Shack and The Ox are considered representative works of the 1930s in their realistic depiction of violence and poverty in rural communities. As a theater critic, Yoo was known for his scathing criticism of contemporary society.
From the 1940s onwards, however, Yoo threw himself into so-called "national theater," creating works that praised the Japanese regime. Heungnyonggang, Yoo's answer to the colonial Five Races Under One Union motto, is noteworthy in its combination of action and melodrama, with an interesting plot and realistic dialogue, but must be discounted for its glorification of Japan's invasion of Manchuria. Yoo, for his part, appears to have had reservations about creating pro-Japanese works. After Daechunamu, he stopped writing and dedicated himself to directing.
After the liberation, he wrote anti-communist works such as Jogugeun bureunda (조국은 부른다 Call of the Motherland), Jamyeonggo (자명고 Self-Beating Drum), and Byeol (별 The Star). From 1956 to 1957, he spent more than a year abroad as a fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation, touring the U.S. and Canada for a total of eight months, followed by four more months in Europe. Back in Korea, he experimented with introducing techniques from film, music, and dance into theater. Hangangeun heureunda (한강은 흐른다 As the Han River Flows), from 1958, uses cinematic expression in its depiction of the despair and moral confusion of the citizens of Seoul at the time of the Korean war.
